‘NEVER AGAIN’

Roberto Verzola used to watch how his uncle and older cousins would slaughter a pig when he was a child.

“As soon as it realized something bad was going to happen, it would shriek for dear life,” said Verzola, a student activist and writer for the student paper of the University of the Philippines Diliman in the early 1970s.

He found himself squealing like a pig on the night he was arrested by officers of the Philippine Constabulary’s Metropolitan Command (Metrocom) in 1974.

“It was a shriek of helplessness, desperation and terror,” Verzola said as he began to narrate his ordeal at the hands of his torturers at the soft-launch on Tuesday of the book “Marcos Martial Law: Never Again,” written by investigative journalist and award-winning political blogger Raissa Robles.

“Never again,” reverberated within the amphitheater of the Ateneo Professional Schools Building in Makati City, as emotions ran high among angry martial law victims and their relatives in the audience.

Robles’ book, which will be out in March, guides the reader through a brief history of the atrocities committed by Marcos’ New Society.

Detained, tortured, killed

Current estimates place the count of victims at 3,257 killed, 40,000 tortured and more than 60,000 illegally detained.

Using official records, Marcos’ own books, reports of local and foreign human rights lawyers, and nongovernment organizations as well as eyewitness accounts and interviews with survivors and military officers, Robles provides a brief historical narrative relating to how and why the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972.

In her book, she also reveals how Cory Aquino was strip-searched several times when she visited her imprisoned husband, opposition Sen. Ninoy Aquino.

Edited by journalist Alan Robles, the author’s husband, the book is published by Filipinos for a Better Philippines Inc.

Torture device

At the launch, Verzola and military historian Ricardo Jose showed the audience how a military field telephone had been turned into a torture device during martial law.

Showing a military telephone manufactured during World War II, Jose said the device could generate current strong enough to cause electric shock.

“It was a war machine meant for communication signals. But during  martial law, it was used for other purposes,” Jose said.

Verzola, now 63, could remember clearly how the device was used on him, apart from the body blows and hitting through hard objects that he received.

His ordeal lasted for one night, from sundown until past midnight.

“The interrogator tied the end of one wire to my right index and other tied around a handle of a spoon,” Verzola said.

The spoon was inserted into his pants and rested near his crotch.

Like a thousand spikes

During the electrocution, it was as if his body was “invaded by the current,” a thousand spikes.

He let out screams. “It was that kind of scream from the soul. I couldn’t stifle it no more than I could stop my hand from jerking,” Verzola said.

Verzola said the Metrocom officers apparently used the electric shock to torture activists often enough that the civilian employees across the room where he was kept showed no sign of surprise or concern.

“This is something that should never happen again,” he said.

 

Tortured to death

Verzola still found himself luckier than those who were tortured to death.

“I can just imagine the experience of those who knew they were going to die with that process. The worst victim of torture was Ka Rolando Olalia who was mutilated beyond recognition,” Verzola said.

Olalia, head of the labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno and the political party Partido ng Bayan, and his driver Leonor Alay-ay  were found dead in November 1986 by the roadside in Antipolo, Rizal province. Their hands were bound, mouths stuffed with newspaper and heads bearing gunshot wounds. Their bodies were mutilated.

There were moments that Verzola would remember martial law strongly.

He felt there was a lack of response among the youth when then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared emergency rule and ordered the arrest of activists in 2006.

“I felt they did not have the scars, the nightmares and friends who died,” Verzola said.

Return of Marcoses

Also at the book launch, former Sen. Rene Saguisag, cofounder of the Movement of Attorneys for Brotherhood, Integrity and Nationalism, said the return of the Marcoses in elective positions in government showed how Filipinos could be forgiving as a people.

“But (Sen.) Bongbong Marcos should apologize,” Saguisag said, meeting a loud “No” among the audience.

One man shouted: “He should return the money.”

“Apology is the beginning. He has to acknowledge that indeed the atrocities happened and his parents robbed the country. They have to make amends including the mother and (his sister) Imee,” Saguisag said.

Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos is running for reelection for her third and final term, while her mother, Ilocos Norte Rep. Imelda Marcos, is also seeking her third and last term.

Carmma, millennials

Martial law victims, who formed a group called Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacañang (Carmma),   have recently begun a campaign against Bongbong’s vice presidential bid.

Over the past months, Senator Marcos has been rising in opinion polls, attracting the support of millennials or young voters with scant or no knowledge of martial law.

Results of the Feb. 5-7 survey by Social Weather Stations, showed Marcos catching up with Sen. Francis Escudero. They were tied in first place with 26 percent ratings.

Ill-gotten wealth

“(Bongbong) is not the past. But he will be your horrible future,” Robles said, noting that the senator knew about the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses.

Robles said Bongbong and his two other siblings—Imee and Irene—were named beneficiaries in various foreign deposit accounts under the name of foundations set up by their father.

“I want the Filipino people to see these affidavits,” Robles said.

During the 21-year rule of the dictator Marcos, he and his family were believed to have accumulated between $5 billion and $10 billion.